- The $3.8 Billion Aircraft Carrier That Sprang A Leak
It triggered embarrassing headlines across the globe late last week and over the weekend: “Britain’s new multi-billion aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth was forced to cut short sea trials this week after springing a leak,” reported CNN.
It was the “future flagship” of the Royal Navy’s fleet, and embarked from Portsmouth for sea trials last month, but then a leak so severe that it reached “neck-high” in some flooded parts of the ship forced a hasty return to its Portsmouth base.
HMS Queen Elizabeth, via Global Look Press “Following a minor issue with an internal system on HMS Queen Elizabeth, the ship’s company were required to remove a small volume of water from the ship,” a Royal Navy spokesperson said. “An investigation into the cause is underway.”
The “minor issue” involved a whopping 250 tons of water (66,000 gallons) flooding two compartments and a stairwell inside the 65,000-ton warship.
A number of UK media reports said the cause was a likely high-pressure sea water pipe which burst. Days following the incident, which was first revealed middle of last week, the Royal Navy reported that the ship’s hull remained undamaged and that all the water was successfully pumped out.
“During her time out of the water, 284 hull valves were changed, both rudder blades were removed and cleaned, her sea inlet pipes were inspected, all sacrificial anodes were replaced and a renewed coat of anti-foul paint was applied to the ship’s bottom,” a Royal Navy press release described further.
HMS Queen Elizabeth: Water leak on aircraft carrier ‘neck-high’ https://t.co/qGAu3LXYw6
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) July 11, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The Royal Navy calls the Queen Elizabeth as well another carrier still under construction, the HMS Prince of Wales, “the largest and most advanced warships ever built for the Royal Navy.”
The ship has reportedly been plagued by other mechanical issues such as a shaft seal leak resulting the ship taking on 200 liters of water every hour, as well as sprinklers being falsely triggered in an aircraft hangar, according to the BBC.
Also interesting is that its captain was removed last May due to misuse of a British Defence Ministry vehicle, the BBC reported.
- "Sweden Is At War"
Authored by Judith Bergman via The Gatestone Institute,
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In 2017, a Swedish police report, “Utsatta områden 2017” (“Vulnerable Areas 2017”) showed that there are 61 such areas — also known as no-go zones — in Sweden. They encompass 200 criminal networks, consisting of an estimated 5,000 criminals. Most of the inhabitants are non-Western immigrants and their descendants.
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In March, the Swedish National Forensic Centre estimated that since 2012, the number of shootings classified as murder or attempted murder had increased by almost 100 percent.
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“Sweden is at war and it is the politicians who are responsible. Five nights in a row, cars have been set on fire in the university town of Lund. Such insane acts have occurred on hundreds of occasions in various places in Sweden over the past fifteen years. From 1955 to 1985, not a single car was ignited in Malmö, Gothenburg, Stockholm or Lund…. None of these criminals is starving or lacking in access to clean water. They have a roof over their heads and they have been offered free schooling…. They do not live in dilapidated houses…. It is called upbringing and this is missing for thousands of girls and boys in Swedish homes today.” — Björn Ranelid, Swedish author, Expressen, July 5, 2019.
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“Very few things were better in Sweden [before]…. We have built a strong country, where we take care of each other. Where society takes responsibility and no man is left alone”. — Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven.
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Sadly, many Swedes probably feel terribly left alone in a country that increasingly resembles a war zone.
In 2018, Sweden experienced a record number of lethal shootings, 306 in all. Forty-five people were killed and 135 injured nationwide, most deaths occurring in Region South, where Malmö is located. In March, the Swedish National Forensic Centre estimated that since 2012, the number of shootings classified as murder or attempted murder has increased by almost 100 percent. The Centre also found that the most popular weapon used in the shootings is the Kalashnikov assault rifle. “It is one of the world’s most manufactured weapons and used in many wars,” said the Centre’s team manager, Mikael Högfors. “When they are no longer needed… they are smuggled into Sweden”.
In the first six months of 2018, according to the police, almost every other shooting took place in a “vulnerable area”, also known as no-go zones. In 2017, a Swedish police report, “Utsatta områden 2017” (“Vulnerable Areas 2017”) disclosed that there are 61 such areas in Sweden. They encompass 200 criminal networks, consisting of an estimated 5,000 criminals. Most of the inhabitants are non-Western immigrants and their descendants.
The police wrote in the 2017 report that global ethnic conflicts are replicated in the vulnerable areas:
“… the [Swedish] judiciary and the rest of [Swedish] society do not understand these conflicts or have answers to how they can be solved. The police therefore need to have a better knowledge of the world and understanding of events in order to interpret what is happening in the areas. The presence of returnees, sympathizers for terrorist groups such as the Islamic State, al Qaeda and al-Shabaab, and representatives of Salafist-oriented mosques, contribute to tensions between these groups and other residents in the vulnerable areas. Since the summer of 2014, when a Caliphate was proclaimed in Syria and Iraq, sectarian contradictions have increased, especially between Sunnis, Shiites, Levantine Christians, and nationalists of Kurdish origin”. (p 13)
On June 3, the police released a new list revealing that there are now 60 such areas, instead of the previous 61. That does not mean, however, that much has improved. On the contrary.
In 2019, shootings still continue apace. In Malmö — a city of more than 300,000 inhabitants, one third of whom were “born abroad” according to the city’s statistics — a 25-year-old man was shot dead outside a social services office on June 10, while on the same day, at Malmö Central Station, police shot a man who said he had a bomb in his bag and was alleged to have behaved in a threatening way. That evening, two men were shot in the Lorensborg area of Malmö. Later that night, two explosions shook the city.
Because of the increased number of shootings, city employees are now apparently so uncomfortable about working in the city that the Malmö municipality has released guidelines on how municipal workers — especially those who work in home care, rehabilitation and short-term housing — can remain safe in the city as they go about their jobs.
Under the heading, “Personal safety – tips and advice on how to avoid getting into unwanted situations”, the municipality advises its employees to “Plan your itinerary – know your area…try to minimize the time from when you park your bike / car until you enter [the destination]”. Also, “Before leaving a building, look out first and make an assessment of the surroundings to avoid getting into an unwanted situation… keep away from people who are considered potentially threatening or dangerous and increase the distance if there are no other people nearby”.
One city employee, who received the guidelines, accused the municipality of hypocrisy: “To the media, the municipality says that everything is fine, even though it is not. Then they send this type of mail to their employees”.
The municipal government’s guidelines on safety seem appropriate for a civil war zone, such as Beirut once was, rather than for the once-peaceful city of Malmö.
Beirut also comes to mind in the Swedish city of Linköping, where in early June an explosion blasted through a residential building, until it looked as if it had been pounded in a war. Miraculously, no one was killed in the blast, but 20 people were injured. The police suspect that the incident was gang-related. A few weeks later, two men were shot in the Linköping district of Skäggetorp — on the police list of “vulnerable areas” or “no-go zones”.
After that, on June 30, in more gang related incidents, three shootings took place in three different suburbs in Stockholm. Two people, one of whom had been shot in the head, died. One of the murdered men, a rapper named Rozh Shamal, had earlier been convicted of assault, robbery and drug offenses, among other things. This year, just in Stockholm, eleven people have already been shot to death — the same number as for all of 2018. This year in Sweden, more than twenty peoplehave so far been shot to death.
“The development is unacceptable,” said the head of the police’s national operational department (Noa), Mats Löfving. “In many cases, military automatic weapons are used. We see a reduction in the number of those injured in firearm violence, but the number of killings does not go down”.
On July 1, National Police Chief Anders Thornberg said that the situation is “extraordinarily serious”. He claimed , however, that the police have not lost control of the gangs and that the main task is to stop the growth in the number of young criminals. “For every young man who gets shot, there are 10-15 new ones ready to step in,” he said. Only a few days later, however, he added that Swedes will have to get used to the shootings for the foreseeable future:
“We think this [the shootings and the extreme violence] might continue for five to ten years in the particularly vulnerable areas,” Thornberg said. “It is also about drugs. Drugs are established in society, and ordinary people buy them. There is a market that the gangs will continue to fight over”.
The leader of the opposition party Moderaterna, Ulf Kristersson, called the situation, “extreme for a country that is not at war”.
Bombed buildings and shootings are not all that is plaguing Sweden. In addition, cars are regularly set on fire. The small picturesque university town of Lund, close to Malmö, has recently been suffering from extensive car fires. The police have not yet identified the suspects. “We see an increase in car fires right now, it is clearly worrying”, said Patrik Isacsson, local police area manager in Lund. He noted that car fires usually increase during the summer months, but have also been increasing over the years. “We do not know yet who the perpetrators are, so I can only speculate, but this type of arson is usually set by young people. That it happens during summertime can be because young people are unemployed and out there a lot”.
“I definitely think that these are young people who have not found their place in society, who know they are not accepted,” commented a sociologist of law at Malmö University, Ingela Kolfjord, “that the climate has hardened and that they are constantly seen as ‘the other’. Car fires are not just a way of showing their displeasure but a way of showing that they are frustrated, desperate and angry.”
Swedish author Björn Ranelid disagreed. “Sweden is at war and it is the politicians who are responsible” he wrote in Expressen.
“Five nights in a row, cars have been set on fire in the university town of Lund. Such insane acts have occurred on hundreds of occasions in various places in Sweden over the past fifteen years. From 1955 to 1985, not a single car was torched in Malmö, Gothenburg, Stockholm or Lund. …When a female sociologist at Malmö University explains the crimes [as a consequence] of youths being frustrated… she speaks nonsense… She repeats things that could have been said by a parrot. None of these criminals is starving or lacking in access to clean water. They have a roof over their heads and they have been offered free schooling for nine or twelve years. They do not live in dilapidated houses. All of them… have had a higher material standard in their homes than several thousands of the children and young people who grew up at Ellstorp in Malmö where I lived with my parents and two siblings, in 47 square meters in two small rooms and a kitchen from 1949 to 1966”.
Ranelid concluded:
“It is called upbringing and this is missing for thousands of girls and boys in Swedish homes today. It’s not about money or where you happen to be born in the world. It has nothing to do with politics or ideology. It is about ethics, morality and co-existence between people”.
Car fires, frequent and widespread, are just one of the new aspects of living in the formerly idyllic city of Lund. In January, a so-called unaccompanied minor from Afghanistan, Sadeq Nadir, sought to murder several people in the city by ramming into them with a stolen car. Although he claimed to have converted to Christianity, material found in his apartment showed that he wanted to wage jihad and become a martyr. He told the police that his intention had been to kill. The event was initially classified as an attempt at a terrorist crime but then changed to a charge of ten attempted murders. Although Sadeq had admitted that his intention was to kill, the Swedish district court did not find that Sadeq could be convicted for either terrorism or attempted murder. The court argued that he had not been driving “fast enough” to cause a concrete risk of death. In the same vein, although Sadeq was found to have written texts about jihad and martyrdom and claimed to be acting for Allah, the court did not find that he had acted from any religious terrorist motives. He was convicted of merely causing danger to others and threatening them.
What is the Swedish government’s assessment of the violent and volatile situation? Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, condemned the recent shootings:
“We have tightened several penalties considerably, including the punishment for illegally possessing weapons and explosives such as hand grenades. We have also given the police increased powers for… camera surveillance and information collection”.
On July 2, the government presented proposals for combating gun violence, including harsher penalties for improper possession of explosive materials and new powers for customs officials to block packages suspected of containing weapons or explosives. According to the opposition, the proposals have come too late. “This could have been done a year ago, too. There have never been so many shootings in Sweden. I think it is obvious to most people that what the government has done is not enough”, said Johan Forssell from the opposition party, Moderaterna.
As late as June 6, on Sweden’s National Day, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, while acknowledging that Sweden “still has serious societal problems” remarked, “Very few things were better in Sweden” before:
“But even though we can think of old times as an idyll with red cottages and green meadows, very few things were better before. During a national day celebration, I think we should celebrate just that, how much we have achieved as a country. We have built a strong country, where we take care of each other. Where society takes responsibility and no man is left alone”.
Sadly, many Swedes probably feel terribly left alone in a country that increasingly resembles a war zone.
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- Channel 4's "Inside Idlib" – The Last Gasp Of A Dying Fake News Campaign
Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,
Channel 4 just announced a new addition to their on-going “Iside Idlib” report: a 10-minute video which – they claim – is evidence of the Russian and Syrian governments committing a war crime.
The war-crime itself is said to be a “double-tap” airstrike, ie. An airstrike, waiting for the first responders to arrive, and then another airstrike. (The term actually originates from US drone strikes in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan…I don’t know if C4 had any special reports about that.)
Watch the video, do you see evidence of a war crime?
Here’s what I saw:
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Fairly quiet countryside.
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Men in White Helmets running around some fig trees.
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Men in White Helmets shouting in Arabic.
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A dust cloud.
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A damaged van/ambulance.
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An injured man/a man pretending to injured/a dummy (You can never be sure with the WH).
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More running and shouting.
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One more dust cloud, much further away.
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People in white helmets looking sad.
Here’s what I didn’t see:
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Any Russian or Syrian planes.
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Any Russian or Syrian military personnel.
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Any Russian or Syrian military equipment.
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Any evidence of the “first airstrike”.
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Any bombs falling.
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Any evidence of a war crime.
If this is really the best they have, then they have nothing. It is, frankly, embarrassing.
THE REPORT
The written report that accompanies the video isn’t much better – it’s essentially just a Cliff Notes version of Jon Snow’s rather simpering commentary, but there’s some interesting language to deconstruct, and omissions to take note of.
An investigation by Channel 4 News has obtained evidence of possible war crimes in Syria
I just love this beginning part. So up itself, so pompous.
We KNOW there was no “investigation”, they didn’t dig this up or ferret it out – the people who made it want it to be on TV. That’s the reason they made it. Channel 4’s “investigation” was checking their email.
Either GCHQ directly dumped it into their inbox one morning, or some NGO proxy did it for them…either way, there was no “investigation”. At best – at best – there were some fact checks AFTER they got the video, just to make sure they weren’t going to make fools of themselves. (Spoiler alert: they did).
As a general rule, with Western mainstream media, when they say “an investigation has obtained” they honestly do mean “someone emailed this to us”. That goes double for bellingcat. That’s just how it works.
…with airstrikes that appear to deliberately target rescuers.
Er…no they don’t. There are five “airstrikes” in the video (according to them, I only saw 2 at most). Of these five, only one (allegedly) hit anywhere even vaguely near an ambulance. If the Syrian airforce have a miss-rate of 80% how on earth are they winning this war?
Footage caught on multiple cameras allegedly shows a so-called ‘double-tap’ operation in Idlib province
They keep coming back to this “multiple cameras” angle, I don’t know why. I think it might be a pre-emptive defence against accusations of fakery, maybe? Which would be pretty revealing in and of itself.
Oh, by the by, the “multiple cameras” are the go-pros and bodycams being worn by the White Helmets. I don’t know if they always wear them, or if they just wore them to that scene. Either way, it’s weird.
If they always wear them…well, they must be expensive, and given the White Helmets are just plucky little volunteers that’s a hell of an investment. (Also, if the white Helmets are always wearing portable cameras, you’d think – five years into their existence – they’d have some pretty solid evidence of war crimes in Syria by now. But apparently this is the best they’ve got. Funny that).
If they put them on for this event especially, well, that’s obviously fishy.
Evidence of this kind has rarely been seen before; a complete incident caught on multiple cameras.
…there they go with the multiple cameras thing again. It’s really nothing like as compelling as they seem to think it is.
Oh, and “evidence of this type” has been seen MANY times before.
I can’t tell you how many videos of dusty men screaming into walkie talkies I’ve seen. Each and every one labelled “daring rescue caught on camera” or “Syrian war crimes exposed”. This is no different. (In fact, it’s worse, because the field of fig trees is actually quite nice, compared with Indistinguishable Pile of Rubble #6).
It’s not a “complete incident” either, because even by their own admission we never saw the initial “strike”, supposing it actually happened.
But, if proven, the so-called “double-tap” tactic is a war crime.
Yes, and the Flat Earth theory if proven, would totally and irreversibly change our understanding of the universe.
“If proven” is a great phrase that way…it sounds serious, like it means something. It carries the implication of “and it will be soon”, but what it actually means – is that it’s not even close to being proven yet.
The war crime isn’t proven to have even happened, let alone to have been carried out by the Russian Syrian Air Force. And it won’t beproven, because the video has no evidence in it.
The footage is barely evidence, let alone proof. It could be recreated with 2 Go Pros, a barrel of dust and some discount fireworks.
WHITE HELMETS
Interestingly, though he’s obviously a man sincerely concerned about human rights and truth and all that good stuff, Mr Snow leaves out a fair amount of information about the White Helmets.
For example, he says that “Assad’s government considers [the White Helmets] enemy combatants.” But he doesn’t say what that’s the case.
Just to fill you all in, Assad’s government “considers the White Helmets enemy combatants” because they are directly funded by the American and British governments and because they regularly support – and even take part in – terrorist activities.
He says that “over 250” of the White Helmets have been killed, but doesn’t say that they claim to have a staff of over 3000 (paid) volunteers.
So, despite being just “carpenters and bakers”, and despite being constantly deployed to war-zones, and despite being the victims of the murderous Assad regime’s nefarious “double-tap” tactics….only 8% of them have been killed. In five years. Less than one per week.
Considering the sheer number of hospitals the Syrians and Russians are alleged to have bombed – well into triple figures by now – that’s actually remarkable. Almost impossible, you might say. Those white helmets must really work.
My favourite part is when Snow has to describe the trick of “smearing mud on the ambulances to hide the White Helmets logo”, without once pausing to question:
1) Where these plucky little ex-bakers managed to get all these modern ambulances customised with their own logo.
2) Why they don’t just stop painting the logo on in the first place.
Just reflect for a second – they have a logo.
How bonkers is that? They’re supposed to be a destitute resistance movement, helping the poor victims of Assad’s brutality. Volunteer bakers and carpenters and school teachers who just want to help…and someone, at some point, is supposed have said “Guys, we should get a logo done,”.
That’s insane.
Did the French Resistance get a logo designed and then tool around occupied Paris in vans with their name painted on the side?
It’s just so…Western. So focus group. So public relations. So modern. The logo has to exist because that’s the brand. They need the logo to help sell the message. It’s the only way they know how to work.
It’s been done to death, but the White Helmets – as the media paint them – just don’t make any sense. They are a narrative beyond ridiculous, that simply can’t exist in the real world, and watching media pundits earnestly describing the Looney Tunes madhouse they’re trying to sell us has become funny.
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I honestly don’t know what the point of this exercise was. It says nothing new, it shows nothing new. It’s a news story from two years ago, warmed up and repackaged.
The public is well past the White Helmets’ schtick, we all know what they are by now. The White Helmets are what you get when you give Al Qaeda a makeover. The result of a Western PR agency tasked with rebranding the unrebrandable.
This fight is over, and our side won. I don’t know what C4, or whoever supplied them this video, were hoping to achieve, but I can tell you they won’t achieve it.
This is the best evidence they have, the best they’ve ever had, they say that themselves. And it’s nothing. The information war for Syria is over. The White Helmets’ PR push failed. Turns out Assad didn’t have to go after all.
It’s really time the UK media woke up to this fact.
At this point it’s just getting sad.
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- These Are The Best And Worst States To Start A Small Business
Building a small business from inception to the point where its thriving and set up for long-term success is no small feat.
According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 1/5th of all startups don’t survive to their first birthday. And nearly half will never make it to their fifth.
But as Wallethub points out, there are different reasons why startups fail. Among them, a bad location is one of the most commonly cited. But beyond situating the business in a popular thoroughfare, choosing the right state to launch your business can also make a huge difference in its odds of success.
States that offer the right conditions for success, such as access to cash, skilled workers, affordable office space and other factors, can be critical in helping a business thrive.
In a recent study, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 26 metrics for startup success, assigning each state a number in each category, then computing which states are the most business-friendly overall.
The results are hardly surprising: High-tax, Democrat-controlled states in the northeast offer some of the worst conditions for businesses, while low-tax states, Republican-controlled states in the Sun Belt have some of the best conditions.
Source: WalletHubSee the complete ranking below:
- Texas
- Utah
- Georgia
- North Dakota
- Oklahoma
- Florida
- Arizona
- California
- Montana
- Colorado
- Idaho
- Washington
- Mississippi
- North Carolina
- Louisiana
- Kansas
- Minnesota
- Michigan
- Nebraska
- Tennessee
- Kentucky
- South Dakota
- Maine
- Indiana
- Nevada
- Oregon
- New Mexico
- Alaska
- Alabama
- Wisconsin
- Arkansas
- Missouri
- Wyoming
- Ohio
- Illinois
- Massachusetts
- Iowa
- South Carolina
- Virginia
- Maryland
- West Virginia
- New York
- Vermont
- Delaware
- Pennsylvania
- Connecticut
- Hawaii
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- Rhode Island
- Turkey's Erdogan Vows To "Significantly" Cut Rates As Trump Set To Roll Out Sanctions Over S-400 Purchase
Lately not a week passes without some dismal news involving Turkey hitting the tape, and yet the lira continues to levitate, blissfully ignorant of the storm clouds headed for Ankara, levitating on hopes the Fed will cut rates and sprinkle golden showers on emerging markets. However, in light of the two latest developments, the Mrs Watanabe sellers of USDTRY may finally pay attention.
On Sunday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – who last weekend fired the head of the central bank for not cutting rates fast enough, and who has now become the de facto head of the CBRT – promised “significantly lower interest rates by the end of the year“, Bloomberg reported.
“We aim to reduce inflation to one digit by the end of this year,” Erdogan told journalists in Istanbul, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency. “As we achieve this, we will achieve our year-end interest rate target as well.” Of course, should interest rates drop to one digit, the USDTRY will promptly collapse to two, as the rate differential between the lira and the dollar collapses, removing the main incentive to go long the lira at a time when the Turkish economy remains in crisis.
Having founded the economic school of Erdoganomics, according to which inflation can be achieved only by lowering rates, the Turkish president and his US counterpart have quickly become kindered spirits when it comes to monetary policy. And just as Trump heaps pressure and insults on Fed Chair Powell, Erdogan has frequently accused the central bank of keeping borrowing costs too high. Last month, he complained that while the Fed was moving toward a rate cut, Turkey’s policy rate of 24% “is unacceptable.”
Then, the last trace of any pretense that Turkey under Erdogan will forever be a banana republic came on July 6, when Erdogan unexpectedly dismissed the former central bank head, Murat Cetinkaya and made it clear that he expects his replacement as central bank governor to follow the government’s line on monetary policy. Cetinkaya had held rates steady for more than nine months.
Meanwhile, even as Trump and Erdo may be BFFs when it comes to firing head of central banks, the US president and his advisors have reportedly settled on a sanctions package to punish Turkey for receiving parts of a Russian S-400 missile defense system and plans to announce it in the coming days, Bloomberg wrote in a separate report.
News of the imminent sanctions was somewhat unexpectedly considering that when Trump and Erdogan met at the G-20 summit in Japan in June, the U.S. president suggested possible leniency on sanctions. He sought to blame the Obama administration for Turkey’s decision to buy the Russian equipment, saying the impasse is “not really Erdogan’s fault.”
According to Bloomberg, the administration “chose one of three sets of actions devised to inflict varying degrees of pain under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, the people said, without identifying which set had been chosen. The plan needs Trump’s approval.”
Russian Il-76, carrying the first batch of equipment of S-400 missile defense system, arrives at Murted Air Base in Ankara, Turkey on July 12, 2019. Trump is said to unveil the sanctions late next week, and – in an unexpected act of courtesy to Ankara – intends to wait until after Monday’s anniversary of a 2016 coup attempt against Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to avoid fueling further speculation that the U.S. was responsible for the uprising. And while we don’t know the details of the prepared sanctions, we know the following:
The plan was developed after days of discussions between officials at the State and Defense departments and the National Security Council. It awaits a sign-off by Trump and his top advisers, the people said, requesting anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. A State Department spokeswoman declined to comment.
While not nearly as bad as that with other non-Saudi middle-eastern nations, the relationship between the U.S. and Turkey has deteriorated over the course of the civil war in Syria, where U.S. backing for Kurdish militants frustrated Turkey, which considers the group an extension of the separatists it’s fighting at home. Erdogan has also criticized the US for not extraditing Gulen, whom he accuses of masterminding the fake attempted “coup” the served as the launchpad for Erdogan’s transformation to an “executive president” last year, read quasi dictator.
Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Friday that Washington’s position that Turkey can’t have both the F-35 and the Russian missile system “has not changed.” Esper spoke with Defense Minister Hulusi Akar in the afternoon, and the Turkish government said in a statement that a U.S. delegation would visit next week to keep discussing the issue.
- Here’s How Much The Top CEOs Of S&P 500 Companies Get Paid
Submitted by Jeff Desjardins of Visual Capitalist
How much do the CEOs from some of the world’s most important companies get paid, and do these top CEOs deliver commensurate returns to shareholders?
Today’s infographic comes to us from HowMuch.net and it visualizes data on S&P 500 companies to see if there is any relationship between CEO pay and stock performance.
For Richer or Poorer
To begin, let’s look at the highest and lowest paid CEOs on the S&P 500, and their associated performance levels. Data here comes from a report by the Wall Street Journal.
Below are the five CEOs with the most pay in 2018:
Last year, David Zaslav led top CEOs by taking home $129.4 million from Discovery, Inc., the parent company of various TV properties such as the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, HGTV, Food Network, and other non-fiction focused programming. He delivered a 10.4% shareholder return, when the S&P 500 itself finished in negative territory in 2018.
Of the mix of highest-paid CEOs, Bob Iger of Disney may be able to claim the biggest impact. He helped close a $71.3 billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox, while also leading Disney’s efforts to launch a streaming service to compete with Netflix. The market rewarded Disney with a 20.4% shareholder return, while Iger received a paycheck of $65.6 million.
Now, let’s look at the lowest paid CEOs in 2018:
On the list of lowest paid CEOs, we see two tech titans (Larry Page and Jack Dorsey) that have each opted for $1 salaries. Of course, they are both billionaires that own large amounts of shares in their respective companies, so they are not particularly worried about annual paychecks.
Also appearing here is Warren Buffett, who is technically paid $100,000 per year by Berkshire Hathaway plus an amount of “other compensation” that fluctuates annually. While this is indeed a modest salary, the Warren Buffett Empire is anything but modest in size – and the legendary value investor currently holds a net worth of $84.3 billion.
Finally, it’s worth noting that while J. Jayson Adair of Copart was one of the lowest paid CEOs at $203,000 in 2018, the company had the best return on the S&P 500 at 82.2%. Today, the company’s stock price still sits near all-time highs.
Maxing Returns
Finally, let’s take a peek at the CEOs that received the highest shareholder returns, and if they seem to correlate with compensation at all.
Interestingly, three of highest performing CEOs – in terms of shareholder returns – actually took home smaller amounts than the median S&P 500 annual paycheck of $12.4 million. This includes the aforementioned A. Jayson Adair, who raked in only $203,000 in 2018.
That said, there is a good counterpoint to this as well.
Of the five CEOs who had the worst returns, four of them made less than the median value of $12.4 million, while one remaining CEO took home slightly more. In other words, both the best and worst performing CEOs skew towards lower-than-average pay to some degree.
- The US Housing Bust In 20 Charts
In “Where The American Dream Goes To Die“, we published some of the most recent, concerning observations on the current state of the US housing market. Now, courtesy of Deutsche Bank, for our lazier readers, here is a visual recap of the recent turning point in US housing, in which DB’s Torsten Slok uses an array of charts to demonstrate that “US Housing is cooling down” as the the negative SALT impact is overshadowing low mortgage rates, high consumer sentiment, and record-low unemployment rate.
Here are the main highlights:
Single-family starts and permits rolling over despite lower mortgage rates and low unemployment rate
Existing single-family home sales and new single-family home sales not rebounding despite very low mortgage rates
Single-family starts cooling down, multi-family sideways
Lower mortgage rates and low unemployment not doing much to boost consumer plans to buy a house
Residential investment is shrinking despite low mortgage rate and low unemployment rate
Year-over-year growth in housing components contribution to GDP
Interest in home buying rolling over
Home price appreciation trending down
Fewer subprime borrowers today. And more people with top credit scores. And still housing is cooling down
30% of the population have a subprime credit score
Almost no distressed home sales
Homeownership rate still far below its peak despite low mortgage rate and low unemployment rate
Since the homeownership rate peaked in 2006 the number of households renting has increased by roughly 10 million
Fewer people plan to buy a home within 12 months despite low unemployment rate and low mortgage rate
Mortgage refi application activity up but not much when taking into account how much mortgage rates have declined
Purchase applications up but not much when taking into account how much mortgage rates have fallen
Manhattan home prices falling at the fastest rate since the financial crisis
Lumber prices down recently
Home ownership rates still below pre-crisis level across age groups
Geographical distribution of housing boom/bust
- "A 6th Grader Should Know America’s Foreign Policy Is Ridiculous"
Authored by Bill Rice, Jr.
Policies which can ensure peace or ignite wars are important. Given this, one might think more Americans would critically examine the basic assumptions which form the basis of our nation’s foreign policy.
As best I can tell, only three such assumptions or premises exist:
- To defend America and its borders, our government must posses the world’s strongest military. It should also not be reticent about using – or threatening to use – said military.
- The freedoms Americans cherish are fragile, and bad actors are plotting to steal them from us.
- If reasons 1 and 2 are not persuasive enough, or do not apply to every geopolitical situation, America must still be willing to use its military to protect its “national interests.”
All three of these assumptions are ridiculous, a fact any bright 12-year-old should recognize.
Regarding Assumption 1 – Surely any American with a 6th grade education is aware of the fact that the world’s two largest oceans happen to “guard” the east and west coasts of the American mainland. Furthermore, any 12-year-old should know that the probability America’s neighbors to the north and south would attack our country is zero.point.zero. What this means to you and me is that if America proper is going to be attacked (and subdued), it’s going to have to be attacked by a nation a vast distance from our borders.
By the time a conscientious student reaches 10th grade he or she should be able to identify the tiny number of nations that might possess the means to occupy or “take over” America. These nations can be counted on three fingers – Russia, China and (if we really want to stretch things) Germany.
However, plenty of high school students should be inquisitive enough to ask a common-sense question: Why would these nations attempt to do such a thing?
Hopefully every American high school has at least a few students who know that occupying a nation with a land mass as vast as America, and with a militarily as powerful as America’s, would require a massive and sustained military operation.
Given that America has 320 million citizens – and if one assumes that a good portion of these citizens are feisty, armed and will be a tad put out at being occupied – subduing and securing America will not be a quick nor easy task. As a guess, such a commitment might require at least 12 million troops, troops rotating in and out of America over, say, a 20-year-period.
Leaving aside the massive costs of such a mission, how many nations actually have 12 million troops to spare?
China might. But before China could deploy these 12 million troops into “theater,” would not America’s government have already fired 1,000 nuclear missiles into China (and any nation allied with China)? And would these nations not respond in kind?
That is, by the time all the mushroom clouds evaporated, it’s unlikely a single “military power” would possess even 150,000 troops to guard its own ruins (much less possess the planes or ships to transport scores of divisions to America).
No – any way you war-game it – invading and occupying America is a non-starter. This is the case for every government on the planet. (And is doubly true for China, which would have obliterated the bulk of its international customers).
Regarding real “national security,” America is in fact the most secure nation on the face of the earth. One could go further. It’s probably the most secure nation in the history of the world … that is, if our government would simply follow Switzerland’s example and quit stirring up hornet nests all over the world. Or: Simply follow the “Golden Rule.”
In truth, the only nation that requires a massive military is a nation that is either surrounded by potential enemies, or a nation that seeks to use its military to expand its empire and/or its “spheres of
meddlinginfluence.” I leave it to the reader to decide which description best fits America over recent decades.Assumption 2 – that our nation’s pro-active military “protects our freedoms” – is equally absurd.
Apparently the fear here is that if America does NOT invade and/or attack Iraq (or Iran or Syria or Libya or North Korea or Venezuela or Cuba or Afghanistan) these “enemies” will somehow eliminate our freedoms. (Surely a sizable percentage of Americans believe that one of the main reasons our troops are in all of these countries is to “protect our freedoms,” ergo these nations must be a “threat” to these freedoms.)
However, a bright 10th grade civics student should be astute enough to ask an obvious question: How exactly would a nation eradicate our freedoms?
Wouldn’t these nations also have to put millions of “boots on the ground?” Wouldn’t this nation(s) have to occupy hundreds of thousands of square miles of U.S. territory and take control of every level of our government, our courts, our police forces, our newspapers, the places we work?
Consider just one of our nation’s freedoms, the “right to bear arms.” To eliminate this freedom/right, these nations would have to figure out a way to take away my brothers’ or your father’s pistols, shot guns, hunting rifles and semi-automatics. Good luck with that, Iran.
To this day I don’t understand how Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi jeopardized my freedom to worship as I see fit, or was going to stop me from making one of my contrarian posts on the Internet. Still, according to the thinking of most Americans, this is exactly what these suckers were scheming to do.
Plus, as any bright 10th grade civics students should know (at least those who have read George Orwell’s 1984), it is our own government that’s far more likely to take away our liberties and freedoms than a hodgepodge group of terrorists located in impoverished nations 10,000 miles from our borders.
Assumption 3 – the only way America can defend its “national interests” is to start wars and change regimes all over the globe, or threaten to do these things – is a tougher nut to crack with satire. (This is largely because “national interest” is such a vague, subjective and ever-changing term). But I’ll try.
Yes, our neocon policies certainly advance the “interests” of some Americans. These Americans basically include military contractors, who become richer from these policies, and politicians, who get to feel even more important by creating new “threats” that tough and wise politicians get to eliminate.
On the financing end, mega banks benefit. I guess a few psychopaths who enjoy killing people might relish participating in a new war.
But excluding the 100,000 or so people in these categories, 319.9 million other Americans do not profit a dime from this quest to pursue “America’s (alleged) interests.”
In reality, wars and gargantuan military budgets send America’s government deeper into the red. The only way to pay for such a “policy” is to print even more money, a process which ultimately causes even greater inflation, and the standard of living of millions of Americans to decline even more. This policy, continued ad infinitum, will also require even more taxes, which further erodes Americans’ “freedom” to keep their own money.
And the above applies only to those of us who who will not be killed, wounded or become suicidal after returning from these global missions to “protect our freedoms” or, if one prefers, “advance our national interests.”
So to sum up:
- No nation is going to invade America.
- No nation’s government (except our own) is going to take away our freedoms.
- The only American “interest” in pursuing these wars is to give more money or power to a handful of people and institutions who are already rich and powerful.
That is, every assumption that justifies our nation’s foreign policy is nonsensical, bogus and ridiculous. Any bright high school student who has been exposed to the concept of critical thinking should be able to cut through the propaganda and recognize these arguments as specious.
One must therefore ask why more Americans don’t recognize this and demand that our leaders abandon these policies, policies that make America less secure, policies implemented by a government that seeks to expand its control over our lives (a condition that is the opposite of freedom)?
The answer is as simple as it is depressing. Most Americans do NOT recognize these points as true or valid. Not only do most Americans reject these arguments, they often smear those who make them as unpatriotic or naive.
Instead, the vast majority of Americans listen to the policy-makers with ph D’s in international relations, or “experts” in government and the CIA, or “authorities” at think tanks who purport to understand “the way the world really works.”
That is, “We the People” have made a colossal mistake. We’ve listened to, and trusted, the wrong people.
- China Reports Slowest GDP Growth On Record, As Retail Sales, Industrial Output And Fixed Investment All Beat
The Chinese goalseek-o-tron was in perfect working order on Monday morning, when moments ago Beijing reported that China’s Q2 Y/Y GDP rose at 6.2%, once again precisely as consensus had expected, down from 64% in Q1 and the lowest since “modern” records started to be kept 27 years ago in 1992, dipping below even the financial crisis low of 6.4$
Additionally, 2Q cumulative GDP rose 6.3% y/y, also matching the consensus estimate, and down from 6.4% in Q1.
“We expect Beijing to ramp up stimulus measures in the second half despite more limited policy room, though markets should not put too high expectations on the scale and duration of these stimulus measures,” Nomura’s China economist Lu Ting wrote in a recent research note. “Domestic policies will to a large extent be dependent on the U.S.-China trade tensions.”
The disappointing GDP print comes just day after another miss, this time in the value of exports, which sharnk by 1.3% in dollar terms in June, after inching up in May despite the tensions with the US.
Property investment moderated to 10.9 per cent in the first six months, compared with growth of 11.2 per cent in the year to May. Strong property sales helped brighten the economy into April, but the sector lost momentum in the second quarter.
But while the record Chinese slowdown was widely as expected, there was an unexpected silver lining to the lowest Chinese GDP print on record, as all three core June economic indicators – retail sales, industrial output and fixed investment – beat sharply lowered expectations, to wit:
- Retail Sales: 9.8%, Exp. 8.5%, up from 8.6%
- Industrial Output: 6.3%, Exp. 5.2%, up from 5.0%
- Fixed Asset Investment: 5.8%, Exp. 5.5%, up from 5.6%
And visually:
The fact that retail sales growth strengthened to 9.8% in June from 8.6% a month earlier, is an encouraging sign that domestic consumption has remained robust (that, or Beijing is now grossly manipulating every economic datapoint). Retail sales remained strong throughout the second quarter, as non-food inflation remained modest.
So while on one hand, the more widely followed GDP print indicates continued slowdown in the overall economy and adds to the pressure Chinese policy makers face as they attempt to negotiate a deal with the US – and while Chinese negotiators are talking with their U.S. counterparts again, there is no certainty that a deal will be reached – the sharp rebound in all three more contemporaneous indicators suggests that Beijing may finally be regaining control of China following some of the biggest credit injections on record as we discussed on Saturday.
Heading into today’s data, China’s Citi Econ surprise index was already down to a four year low, so with the improvement in today’s non-GDP reports, we are confident that many will speculate tomorrow that China may have finally hit the bottom of its recent slowdown and is finally turning the corner.
Whether that is true, or merely trade war propaganda to avoid the impression that China’s economy is truly hurting, remains to be seen.
As a reminder, Beijing has set a target of doubling the size of its economy by 2020 compared vs 2010. Amid fears that the trade war will dent China’s formidable export industry, Beijing has maintained a loose monetary policy and introduced industrial policies meant to stimulate investment. And now, to telegraph to the market that its policies are finally gaining traction, it is hardly a surprise that most non-GDP econ data solidly beat expectations.
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